Theater Review: Phantom’ returns to tell his Gothic tale

Thursday

Jul 3, 2014 at 10:10 AMJul 3, 2014 at 10:10 AM

By David Brooks AndrewsWicked Local Arts Correspondent

If you have any doubt about our country's love of big, consider "The Phantom of the Opera."Everything about the musical is big - the sets, music, story, cast and orchestra. It would be more accurate to say huge.Most of all, its appeal is huge. It has been playing on Broadway for nearly 26 years, old enough to have finished graduate school by now, if it were a person. All of its shows worldwide are estimated to have grossed $5.6 billion, more than any film or stage play in history.Andrew Lloyd Webber, who is the composer and wrote the book and orchestrations, was determined to write a major romantic musical, and in many ways succeeded, certainly in terms of size.The new national touring production of "Phantom" with reinvented staging and scenic design that has landed in Boston for a three-week run is a lavish, grand spectacle, designed to blow you away, which it undoubtedly will on one level.But something is missing or has been crowded out, and no doubt has been since the show was originally conceived. The problem is not unique to this touring production. What's missing has to do with human dimension, characters and emotions we can easily empathize with, subtlety, and room for our imagination to play a role - reasons many avid theatergoers are drawn to the theater.This, of course, is the show about a phantom - is he a ghost or a man, we're made to wonder - who lives in the subterranean bowels of the Paris Opera House in the late 19th century, falls in love with the beautiful, young performer Christine Daae, and attempts to control her life and the productions that are staged at the Opera House. He wears an iconic white mask to cover one side of his face that has been severely deformed. Christine's childhood friend, Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, comes back into her life as a patron of the Opera House, falls in love with her and attempts to free her from the clutches of the Phantom.The show is based on the French novel "Le Fantome de l'Opera" by Gaston Leroux that was serialized between 1909 and 1910 and published as a book in 1910.Julia Udine, who plays Christine, has a gorgeous singing voice - strong, lyrical, hitting the highest notes with ease and at one point carrying them with a lovely trill. She embodies the sweet, innocent quality that's at the heart of Christine, and conveys the sense of being tormented by the Phantom, as she's unable to get his music out of her head and him out of her life.Cooper Grodin as the Phantom has a rich, mellow singing voice. And he captures the tyrannical creepiness of the title character. It's not hard to imagine how the character of the Phantom grew out of overwrought voice teachers and composers who fall in love with their pupils, insist on things being done exactly their way, and want their own music performed.Ben Jacoby brings a passion to Raoul and a determination to free Christine from the Phantom. He, too, has an appealing voice.The most striking of the many striking sets is in the bowels beneath the Opera House, featuring a tall tower with an opening at the top, steps that stick out like knife blades, a gondola carrying a large flame, and mist pouring across the stage floor.There's a beautiful scene in which Christine talks with her friend and ballerina Meg Giry in the foreground, while we watch ballerinas in their dressing room in the background, as if they were straight out of a Degas painting.With all of the huge scenes, it's a pleasing change to have several take place in the much smaller Manager's office with red velvet covered walls, including a clever scene in which characters reveal the different threatening notes the Phantom has sent them.At the opening of the second act, the full company appears on stage in the grand ballroom at the Opera House for a masquerade dance and sings "Masquerade/Why So Silent?" It's a powerful number and scene, made all the more ironic when one character naively says, "What a pity the Phantom can't be here."A heavily beaded chandelier falls from the ceiling, as anyone who has heard about the show knows. The Phantom throws fire that leaps up from a piano and the stage floor, at one point so bright you can't look at it. Of all the intentionally overdone elements, the one that seems particularly unnecessary is the heavy organ chords that warn us something scary is about to happen. Overall, the music is lush and romantic.What brings the greatest clarity to "Phantom" is to remember that it is essentially a Gothic story given class by being set in the Paris Opera House. As a Gothic story, it obviously is thrilling to many but has its limitations."The Phantom of the Opera"WHEN: Through July 20 WHERE: Boston Opera House, 539 Washington St., Boston TICKETS: Start at $33 INFO: 800-982-2787; www.BroadwayInBoston.com